Thursday, 22 August 2013

WHB Creamy strawberry icy poles, a party and surprises

It is a wet rainy evening but we were enjoying strawberry icy poles. I made them on a whim after browsing magazines in our local newsagents yesterday. I think my enthusiasm got away with me. It probably wasn't the day for it with lots of other baking going on. But the strawberries at the fruit and veg shop were cheap and tempting. And pink things are very popular in our place.

Before telling you about the icy poles I will share a few more pink photos from my niece, Stella's first birthday party on the weekend. My sister really knows how to plan an amazing party. A BBQ outside and table heaving under sweet food inside. A barbie doll cake and a cake of many layers. A bouncy castle out the back. Pin the tail on the unicorn game. Then a strawberry shaped pinata.

Sylvia still gets starry eyed when she remembers the lollies raining from the pinata. I on the other hand have a shiver of horror at the memory of the kids weilding a big stick to hit the pinata.

Let's not dwell on it. Instead here are three moments that reminded me that the best laid plans don't always work out as we expect:

I know my way to Fran and John's place quite well. Yet I wasn't concentrating and headed towards my parents' house instead. Sylvia and I took the scenic route to the party and got there a little later than I intended.

Sylvia was quite excited about the party. Yet when she arrived and saw all the people there she was stuck by shyness and it took her quite a while to warm up and enjoy bouncing up and down with the other kids, lollypops in mouths!

It was Stella's birthday yet she was fast asleep before all the games began.

Fran did heaps of baking for the party. And as if that wasn't enough she made amazingly good gingerbread biscuits for the party bags for the kids to take home. Stella might not remember it very clearly but it was an impressive do.

At home we also had a few unexpected moments yesterday:

We had a swim and left the car in the swimming carpark while we went to the newsagent and fruit and veg shop, stopping to talk to a few people we knew from swimming. I was most displeased to get back to the car and have a parking ticket for overstaying the time limit by 20 minutes. There are a few places in Melbourne that I am very wary of overstaying parking but not in our local area.

Sylvia lost a little and tiny castle my parents brought back from Denmark. She moved lots of furniture around in the loungeroom in search of it. We found the castle in her bedroom.

When Sylvia was searching for the castle, I was pleased to finally find some green shoes I had been searching for. Unfortunately they had a huge hole in them and had to be thrown out. Perhaps that is why I had shoved them in a corner in the first place.

Another little irony was that I ended up buying the BBC Vegetarian Good Food (Summer 2013) magazine where I found the recipe. Yet it was so simple that I never even consulted the magazine again before making the icy poles.

The recipe that interested me because it combined the healthiness of lots of fresh fruit with the decadence of condensed milk. Doesn't the drizzle of condensed milk look pretty in the above photo! I was also interested because, having recently experimented with condensed milk in no churn ice cream recipes, I was aware that it makes a creamy ice cream.

It would also make a child happy if you just topped it up with milk and gave it to them in a cup. I know this because I had a little of the mixture leftover after filling 10 icy pole moulds so I did just that. Sylvia drank it in record time.

And how did the icy poles taste? Amazing! Very sweet but also slightly fruity. (Perhaps lemon juice would take the sweet edge off it?) Yes, I am afraid it is not the healthiest ice cream. The condensed milk had its way over the fruit but the strawberries. But only just. I found the flavour reminded me of a strawberry ice cream or milkshake that I might have had in my childhood. But better. Sylvia demonstrated how much she loved it with her reluctance to share it.

I have a busy September coming up with a holiday, Vegan Mofo and hosting Pasta Please. I am trying to prepare as much as possible for it beforehand. The rest of yesterday's baking will appear later. This morning, I was pleased to be able to share a little of it with my lovely fellow bloggers Kari and Mel when we met for a coffee at Brunettis. Now I just need to stew those apples!

Wash, hull and chop strawberries. Use a blender to puree. (As you will see in the photos, my food processor was otherwise engaged so I used my hand held blender in a large bowl.) Add condensed milk and soy milk and blend til pureed. Pour into icy pole moulds - leaving a little room at the top for the mixture to expand when frozen. Freeze overnight. To remove icy pole from mould, run under hot water until the icy pole comes away from mould easily.

I have a little shiver of horror at the thought of children bouncing up and down with lolly pops in their mouths! It sounds like an amazing party though - far more extensive and impressive than any I went to as a child. If I ever track down soy condensed milk, I will also be making these icy poles for sure.

Also, I think it is safe to say that Mel and I were even more pleased to be able to share in your baking :D In fact, I'm having some of the muffins for breakfast, and they are delicious (I'm telling myself the chocolate is offset by the vegan low-sugar-ness!).

Kari, I think I spotted tins of soy condensed milk in the PAWS store in Perth - might be worth a look if you are in the area. I had a similar breakfast yesterday too, the mini-muffins were great with a coffee.

It all looks great and I had to laugh about your shoes, that's the sort of thing that goes on here. We can't find my son's full body ski suit, how on earth one loses such a big puffy hard-to-lose item is beyond me.

Thanks Veganopoulous - what amazed me was that I have looked under the couch for stuff heaps of times and not realised there was a little blind corner that you could only find from a different angle. Hope that ski suit reappears but not in the middle of summer :-)

What a party! I have read about using condensed milk in ice cream but never tried it. I had to smile when I read about Sylvia not wanting to share it. Thank you so much for contributing dessert to WHB this week.

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.